


A Minor Fear Demon

by 0Rocky41_7



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Confrontations, Cullen critical, Dragon Age Kink Meme, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Sexual Harassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:14:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29248611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0Rocky41_7/pseuds/0Rocky41_7
Summary: When Warden-Commander Surana arrives at Skyhold to meet with the inquisitor, she is unpleasantly surprised to find a remnant of her past still haunting her.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	A Minor Fear Demon

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to be upfront: I know it's in the tags, but this fic is pretty critical of Cullen's behavior towards Surana in the Circle. It's not a wholesale condemnation of his ability to grow and change, but it does paint him as unequivocally in the wrong at Lake Calenhad. 
> 
> [Original kink meme prompt:](https://dragonage-kink.dreamwidth.org/93509.html?thread=366424901)  
> "I'd like an F!Mage!Warden comes to Skyhold to help/do stuff and meets Cullen.
> 
> The now confident and experienced warden explains to Cullen that when they were at the circle the only reason they returned his crush was that she was afraid of the consequences of rejecting him and having to deal with the dangers on an angry/hurt templar."
> 
> Some implied Alistair/Surana, but it can absolutely be read as platonic.

When the letter from Leliana reached her, Warden-Commander Surana knew it could not be refused. To turn away from a request for help from Leliana? It wasn’t possible. Even the urgency humming in her veins, begging her to find a cure for the Calling, even her duty to the Grey Wardens as an organization on the precipice of collapse could not keep her from coming to her old friend’s aid.

Still, of all things from her past she expected to run into at Skyhold, it was not a ghost of the Lake Calenhad Circle of Magi. The years that had passed since her expulsion from the Circle had worked away at her resentment like water against a stone, and so the edges were much smoothed, the breadth much reduced, and thinking of it no longer made her grind her teeth in bitter fury, but that did not make it an _easy_ memory. If she had to have a reminder about it though, why did it have to be—?

The moment Surana saw Ser Cullen Rutherford at the war table, her back went stiff as stone. There was no escaping unnoticed, either—his eyes were on the door, as if he had been waiting for her arrival. Once upon a time, she thought, she would have left. Without a word, simply quitted the room, and gone on her way. Even now, the whisper of the thought flickered through the back of her mind, but she pushed it aside. Years gone was her rage at First Enchanter Irving—so too was her fear of Ser Rutherford. She lifted her chin and stepped to the table, confident her pause had gone unnoticed by Ambassador Montilyet and the inquisitor. A reflex trained so long and hard was difficult to suppress, but she would not bow to a boogeyman of her past, even in the flesh.

But Leliana knew her too well not to see her discomfort.

She could feel Leliana’s eyes on her, and guessed her old companion was debating whether to ask her outright if something was wrong, or try a more discreet angle. Surana made sure she did not make eye contact—she had given enough away with her body language already. But when Ambassador Montilyet proposed a brief recess, Surana could not avoid her anymore, not when she was trying so hard not to hurry from the room.

“Ruth, is something the matter?” Leliana caught her in the hallway, with Surana too aware that Ser Rutherford was lingering in the war room.

“It’s nothing.” But her clipped tone and anxious fidgeting did not convince Leliana.

“If something is wrong, you can tell me.” Much had changed about her since she had traveled with Surana and Alistair, but Surana could see that at her core, Leliana’s kindness remained. For a moment, a precious breath, she almost told her. But to what end? Making a scene? Refusing to work with the Inquisition? What was going on now was bigger than her—bigger than Rutherford. There was no sense in dragging old skeletons out of the closet.

“This business with Corypheus and the Calling…” she hedged with a small shake of her head. “It worries me a great deal. I fear it may be the end of our order.” A pause swelled in the wake of her words, as Leliana decided whether to take them at face value or not.

“When we defeat him, you won’t have to worry about that anymore,” she said at last, placing a hand on Surana’s shoulder.

“But if he can do it…that means someone else could.”

“I doubt there is anyone else like Corypheus out there,” Leliana said. Surana snorted, and she wasn’t sure herself if it was amusement or disbelief.

“I doubt it too, but I can’t rule it out. Not anymore.”

And that was the end of it, for the time being. They recessed, returned to the war table, and Surana gave what advice and counsel she could to the inquisitor—a woman who was clearly in over her head, but at the least had a great deal more support than Surana and Alistair had at hand after Ostagar.

Rutherford was watching her. She could feel it in the angle of his body at the table, the pauses before he spoke, no matter how studiously she avoided looking at him. That old, familiar sensation sent roaches scurrying up her back and arms, just as it had back in the Circle—a memory she could have _quite_ contentedly gone without reliving.

Recollections she had long swept to the distant annals of her mind were resurfacing, and no effort to beat them back could keep them at bay. If someone had asked her that morning if she remembered the exact timbre and lilt of Ser Rutherford’s voice, she would have said no (thank the Maker). Now, though, having heard it again for the first time in a decade, she found she could perfectly recall far too many of the things he had said to her, in the exact way he had said them.

Fear makes for strong memories—someone had told her that once. Was it her mother? A senior enchanter? She couldn’t recall. But it did seem to make them linger quite a bit.

He tried to bait her into conversation a few times, when the inquisitor fell silent, in contemplation of the task before her:

“I’m sorry to hear about the Grey Wardens” or “I didn’t think Leliana would be able to find you” or “How have you been since the Blight?” but she ignored them all, a luxury she had not been afforded as an apprentice or a newly minted mage.

When there was nothing left to discuss, Surana took a moment to study the maps in solitude, once she was sure Cullen had taken his leave.

It should not have surprised her that he came back—but then, maybe some part of her had been waiting for it, waiting for this.

“I know this can’t have been easy on you.” For a moment, taken aback, Surana looked up, shocked by this sign of self-awareness. “I was sorry you had to be sent away to the Wardens, and now, all this trouble with the Calling…” Ah. Naturally he had not been referring to the concern foremost on Surana’s mind—par for the course as far as their relationship went.

“I stopped being angry about that a long time ago,” she said, returning her attention to the war table (although her eyes continually strained at the periphery, to keep any motions by Ser Rutherford in view). “If it wasn’t the Calling, it would be something else. There’s always something else.”

The long pause did not signal the talk was over—Cullen was like that, often taking so long to gird himself for whatever he meant to say to her that an outside observer might think the conversation was concluded. Surana had gotten used to it.

“It’s good to see you again.” When he did speak, his voice was soft, and much closer—she had been too focused on anticipating another remark she had not noticed he had moved to stand at the opposite edge of the table, as close to her as he could get without coming around to her side.

Surana did not respond.

“I know it’s been a long time, and a lot has happened, but I…never stopped thinking about you.”

“You should have,” she said shortly, and felt an unreasonable thrill at daring to say what was possibly the most honest thing she’d ever said to him.

“I know.” That hadn’t changed, either—the way Rutherford acknowledged he should not be doing what he was doing, but never for the reasons Surana thought he shouldn’t be doing it.

Now she saw him move, edging around the oaken war table, trying to close the space between them. She set her feet, as if bracing for a fight, and refused to flee.

“I can’t believe the Wardens sent you alone,” he said, and when her eyes flicked up to his face, there was, at least, a facsimile of concern there.

“I chose to come alone,” she said. “Alistair is needed elsewhere. I do many things alone, Ser Rutherford. I am not an apprentice in need of someone to protect me.”

“I’m not a templar anymore,” he said, in a way that suggested he thought this should have significance for her.

“But I am still a mage,” she replied brusquely, and turned her eyes back to the maps, though she had nothing left to look for on them, except to study the place she knew Alistair to be. When she saw him move again, he was far too close, and Surana questioning her decision not to move (But what was the alternative? To allow him to chase her around the table like a dog after a rabbit? No—she would not play that game). He reached out to touch her, and Surana turned to grab his wrist and stop him, but before either of them made contact, Leliana strode back into the room, and they quickly retracted.

“Ruth,” she said.

“Leliana.”

“Can I speak with you a moment?”

“I was just talking to Ser Rutherford,” Surana replied.

“So I heard.”

“He seems to have forgotten that I am a mage.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Cullen said. “I just…things are different now.”

“Because you aren’t a templar?” Surana asked.

“Partly, yes,” he said, a defensive note in his voice. Surana straightened up from the table and turned to face him fully.

“Things are not different,” she said. “Things are not different because whether I am a mage, or whether I am a _nug_ , you will never have what you want from me. That is as true now as it was then.” Rutherford blinked at her in stunned silence, and Surana found she could not stop herself from continuing. “What did you think would happen here, ser? That I would throw myself down on the table for you to ravish me? That I would break into tears and confess how much I’ve missed having you stalk my shadow? That I would twist my hair like a blushing maiden and admit that I always secretly loved you?” Her heart was beating a tattoo against her ribs, but there was no fear or apprehension left in her. “Do you know, what it is you made me feel most often?” she asked, lowering her voice and looking directly into his eyes. “Two things: fear and relief. Fear of running into you, and relief whenever I got away.”

Leliana had not left, but she said nothing, merely observed in silence, and Surana did not wish to tell her to go.

“Why…what cause would you have to be afraid of me?” Cullen asked.

“Why! How like a man!” Surana scoffed, wrinkling her nose. “You cornered me in store rooms, you went through my things when I wasn’t there, you looked for any chance you could to search my room for contraband—which I _never_ had—you spoke to _someone_ to make sure you were always patrolling near where I was studying…and then you would tell me how terrible it was for you to want to be close to a mage, how inappropriate it was for you to be talking to me, and the way you _looked_ at me, as if I were a demon, a thing to resist…there is little more dangerous to a woman than a man who is resentful of his own feelings towards her,” she said. “I considered myself lucky I didn’t end up Tranquil, or bearing a secret child in the Circle.

“I was so excited, about going to the Circle.” Fifteen years of bitterness dripped off her voice, unbound by the breaking of a damn she had long viewed as indestructible. “It was a way out of the alienage, it was a place away from a family too large to care for me, it was a place I could _learn_ , and _grow_ , and you _stole_ it from me. I was happy there, until you came, and then every day became about you—how I could avoid you, how I could get away from you, relief on days we had no cause to meet…” As she trailed off, Rutherford saw a chance to defend himself, the horrified expression on his face having receded only slightly.

“I would never have done such a thing! How could you think that?”

“How could I _not_?” she countered. “I was a mage. You were a templar. You could have done whatever you wanted to me, and there was nothing Irving could do but try to clean up the aftermath. You made it clear the only thing between me and disaster was your threadbare self-control. And,” she added, feeling that old rage start to boil up in her breast, without Alistair there to calm it, “I am an _elf_.” It shouldn’t have mattered, it shouldn’t have made a difference, and mostly in the Circle she had felt it hadn’t—but when pitting her word against Ser Rutherford’s? How could it not be taken into account? “Even if Gregoir had punished you, even if he had expelled you from the order…by then, it would be too late. The harm would have been done.”

“I would never have hurt you,” he insisted.

“Why should I believe that?”

“It was Cullen,” Leliana said softly when he did not reply. “The one you told us about.” For a long moment, Surana just stood, looking at the man who had once walked in her nightmares, and marveled with a kind of dispirited disgust that he was still affecting her life. Leliana apparently needed no more of an answer. “You should have said something earlier. I would have made different arrangements.”

“Why didn’t you just _tell_ me?” he asked.

“Oh yes, tell the massive armored templar with the ability to silence my magic at will that I’m not interested in his romantic and sexual advances,” Surana replied bitingly. “I’m sure _that_ can’t go wrong at all. Do you remember what you told me after my Harrowing? I do. You said you would have been so sorry to have to kill me, but you would have done it, of course. Do you remember what you told me in the basement? That the stone was so thick, nothing could be heard from the main floor of the tower.” She turned to Leliana. “I didn’t think my personal feelings were enough to change the necessity of this meeting. Ser Rutherford commands your forces; you cannot banish your own commander from such a meeting. I had simply hoped to avoid this conversation.”

“Leliana, where are—there you are!” While someone among the three of them tried to move on, Seeker Pentaghast came in search of Leliana, and seeing them all there, gave pause. “Was there something else to discuss? I thought the inquisitor had ended the meeting.”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Surana replied.

“It seems the commander and Warden Surana have rather different recollections of their time at the Circle,” Leliana said, which Surana thought was admirably diplomatic, although the sharp look that Leliana gave Rutherford suggested he had given her another impression prior to Surana’s arrival. “But she’s right, it is not something for us to discuss.”

“The Inquisition will have influence in what happens after this is over.” It occurred to her anew that Pentaghast was a _seeker_ —someone with the ability to punish or even remove a templar from the order. “It is something for you to consider, if you mean to re-establish the Circle of Magi,” she said. “Mages have very little recourse for templars who overstep their boundaries.”

The seeker’s eyes flitted between Cullen shifting uncomfortably (wishing to flee the room, no doubt), and Surana’s iron stare.

“You are speaking of…”

“Unwelcome advances on the mages of the Circle,” Surana finished bluntly. Both of the human women had turned their gaze back to Ser Rutherford, but Surana found she was not sorry for putting him in the position. He’d done it himself, she thought. If he’d left her alone, they never would have had this conversation. “You understand, such things are usually not taken seriously, until it is too late. Occasionally, they are played up as mutual affairs, which is sometimes true, and sometimes a cover for templar abuses.

“I understand the inquisitor never spent time in the Circle…but as I have no doubt the Inquisition will have much say in Thedas’ rebuilding, it would mean a great deal to me if this concern could be taken into account,” she said. “The Circle should be a place for education, a safe haven for mages…not a place they have to watch their backs for reprisals from spurned templars.” In the quick moments of silence that followed, she thought Rutherford might try to defend himself again, but he seemed to have finally given up on that, or else he did not want to give Surana a chance to berate him in front of Seeker Pentaghast, who well outranked him as a member of the Seekers of Truth.

“I will be certain to raise this with the inquisitor,” Leliana said. “And Ruth, for the rest of this visit…”

“Please.” Surana interrupted before Leliana could finish. “I can be professional, Leliana. I won’t upset this meeting for my own grievances. Let us just carry on as if nothing were said.”

So they did. Ser Rutherford spoke to her only once more, outside of the war meetings, before her departure. Cornering her in solitude had always been one of his preferred methods for talking to her, but she was a far more competent mage now than she had been then, and it did not alarm her as it once had.

“I wanted to apologize to you,” he said, not meeting her gaze.

“I don’t want your apologies,” she replied at once. “I want you to do better.” She let that sit a moment before adding: “It was ten years ago, Rutherford. I’ve moved on. So should you.” He lowered his head, and Surana took her leave.

Alistair and the rest of the Grey Wardens were waiting for her—she had wardens to manage, a purpose to fill, and work to do, and felt that at long last, she had shaken the final remnants of Lake Calenhad off her shoulders.

**Author's Note:**

> Personally I always had a negative take on Cullen's behavior towards Surana/Amell, and I think that experience shaped a lot of how Ruth approaches men and romantic relationships, because it did happen when she was young and forming ideas about romance and sex. 
> 
> [On tumblr](https://imakemywings.tumblr.com/post/642406212768546816/a-minor-fear-demon) | On Pillowfort


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